Over a year ago, I had two major problems with (Mac) Quicken that compelled me to leave it for iBank because no one here, nor on Quicken support, could answer two simple, but major problems I encountered. This is just an update to say that I eventually figured out how to "beat" both problems.
- I had been downloading my bank information from my checking account, and reconciling it for about a year. I then got the bright idea to load in nearly two years of data previous to that so I could compare year to year spending. After entering it, I was unsuccessful in ever reconciling the account again. It popped up all kinds of unhelpful help windows telling me that it just couldn't do or understand, or reconcile, and sometimes offered to help with adjustments that never worked... what a nightmare it was. I asked here and at Quicken's help, and no one could clearly tell me what I needed to do. Nor was it in the about 5 reference books I have on the shelf from over the years on Quicken.
- I set up ATM withdrawls and two credit card accounts and used the [Account] construct to have any amounts from withdrawls or checks to go into those accounts for reconciliation against my cash spending and itemized credit card report spending. Well, the transfers would appear in the registers of the newly created accounts, but nine times out of ten, no money showed up there! But one time out of ten, it would! (this during the normal download from the bank). Again, I asked here about it, and the Quicken help desk, and in the books I had. No one could offer any useful advice. [oh, contacting Quicken help always gets you a lot of of work to do for a remedy, but it is almost always not on point, and a useless waste of time].
So Quicken use was 100% dead in the water for my needs.
But, iBank was too young and useless itself. I'm hoping that someone soon develops a good application for this soon.
But, meanwhile, I did eventually find, on my own, workarounds for 1. and
- above. Why no one could tell me those things remains a mystery to me, because in hindsight, they are obvious ways to assist a flawed program.
- Fix 1 is to examine the download when it happens, and make a couple of mouse clicks that can fix it. This only takes a few seconds to check and fix the problem every time it happens. Why it happens, who knows. And why here or Quicken's Help Desk just couldn't tell me this procedure, rather than have me try very complicated and useless things, I don' know.
- Fix 2 is to go to the menu, look for the obvious, select it as many times as necessary, click again, and suddenly reconciliation will work as expected without all the annoying and impossible pop ups telling you it all can't be right... or whatever the complaints were. Again, why someone here or at Quicken's Help Desk could not just tell me that and how simple it is, I have no idea.
I hope I have made these simple fixes as clear and transparent as the support I have received here and from the Quicken Help Desk, or whatever they call it.
But I'm still keeping my eyes out for a better program.